Freed Cal Hikers Set Bay Area Wedding Date

Sarah Shourd (L), Shane Bauer (C) and Josh Fattal, hug during a press conference after the two men returned to the US on September 25, 2011. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

BERKELEY (CBS/AP) – Two University of California, Berkeley grads who were accused of spying and imprisoned in Iran are planning to get married in the spring.

Cindy Hickey, the mother of Minnesota native Shane Bauer, said her son will marry Californian Sarah Shourd on May 5 in the Bay Area.

Bauer, Shourd and their friend, Josh Fattal, were arrested by Iranian soldiers in July 2009 as they hiked near the Iraq-Iran border. Bauer proposed to Shourd while both were in prison, fashioning an impromptu ring out of threads from his shirt.

Iran accused all three of them of espionage, but the hikers and their families said they aren’t spies but instead were detained after they accidentally crossed an unmarked border into Iran.

Iran released Shourd, 32, last September because she was in poor health. Shourd announced in May that she would not return to Iran for a trial because she was suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bauer and Fattal, both 29, were held for more than two years before being freed on bail this September.

Since her release last year, Shourd has lived in Oakland. Bauer, a freelance journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minn., and Fattal, an environmental activist, is from a Philadelphia suburb.